In the beginning of January, 1809, a new Committee (chronologically the third) was appointed in St. Petersburg for the purpose of examining all the phases of the problem of diverting the Jews from the rural liquor traffic to other branches of labor. This time the committee consisted of Senator Alexeyev,[250] who had made a tour of inspection through the western provinces, Privy-Councilor Popov, Assistant Minister of the Interior Kozodavlev, and others. In his instructions to Popov, who was chairman of the Committee, the Tzar admits that the impossibility of removing the Jews from the villages results from the fact that "the Jews themselves, on account of their destitute condition, have no means which would enable them, after leaving their present abodes, to settle and found a home in their new surroundings, while the Government is equally unable to undertake to place them all in new domiciles." It has therefore been found necessary "to seek ways and means whereby the Jews, having been removed from their exclusive pursuit of selling wine in the villages, hamlets, inns, and public houses, may be enabled to earn a livelihood by labor." At the same time the Committee was directed to take into consideration the "opinions" submitted previously by the Jewish deputies. After indulging in cruel vivisectionist experiments on human beings, the Government finally realized that mere paper orders were powerless to remodel an economic order, which centuries of development had created, and that violent expulsions and restrictions might result in ruining people, but not in effecting their "amelioration." The Committee was at work for three years. The results of its labors were embodied in a remarkable report submitted in March, 1812, to Alexander I. Since Speranski's declaration of 1803, reproduced above,[251] this official document was the first to utter a word of truth on the Jewish problem.